Bill Lowe, who really didn't believe in the future of the PC,
named Estridge to head up the project. Estridge was a second line
programming manager who was being 'punished' for something or other,
but was a good enough organizer to actually line up all the
dependencies, design and build the original PC on a very compressed
schedule. He got Lowe to authorize a special employee discount,
another first for the group, because Lowe didn't believe they would
recoupe development costs through sales alone, which were slated
to be 25k units.
Well, the PC was so succesful that they had to promote Estridge
along with the growth of the market. He was about the only original
design team member that got any real bucks out of the deal, most
of the rest of the team leaving the company in dissapointment over
the lack of rewards.
Estrige rode it up to Division President when an L1011 landing at
DFW got dirt over the windshield instead of concrete under the
wheels. He left a winner. Ironically, he was not a great manager,
and an audit found massive inventory problems which probably would
have caused his removal from the presidency had he not met his
demise. His family settled with the airline for big bucks, it
was later reported, based on loss of future income, etc.
Frank |
